Across The Nation

Two Oregon teenagers who didn’t return from a weekend hike are safe after spending two nights in wet, windy weather.

Jackson Chandler, 17, and Bradley Nelson, 16, were found Monday afternoon by a driver not connected to the search party, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Nate Thompson said. They did not need medical attention.

Television cameras captured the boys’ emotional reunion with relatives after rescuers escorted them to the trailhead.

Chandler and Nelson told reporters they went in the wrong direction and got lost. The Boy Scouts and avid hikers did not have food, but they drank water and slept under trees that blocked the rain.

The pair left West Linn in suburban Portland on Saturday afternoon and planned to return to their vehicle by nightfall.

Their parents called for help when the boys didn’t come back. On Sunday, a searcher discovered the teens’ pickup five miles east of the Table Rock Wilderness area.

WASHINGTON

Eight days before the election, President Barack Obama switched from campaigner to hands-on commander of the federal response to Superstorm Sandy as it barreled across the Eastern Seaboard. Republican Mitt Romney scaled back his appearances and urged supporters to “do your very best” in donating to relief efforts.

The political pace quickened on Monday even without the customary clash of rallies and rhetoric. Romney’s allies put down $1.2 million for a last-minute television ad campaign designed to make Pennsylvania competitive — or at least appear so — and the roll of early voters swelled past 15 million in scattered states.

With the race in its final full week, most national polls showed the two presidential rivals separated by a statistically insignificant point or two.

NEW YORK

Microsoft launched a new version of its Windows Phone software with broad support from smartphone makers, cellphone carriers and app developers as the software company tries to position new Windows gadgets as strong alternatives to Apple and Android devices.

The company also promised to address one of the chief shortcomings with Windows Phone: the dearth of third-party applications relative to offerings for Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google’s Android system.